Building Your Social Media Plan For 2010
Seven steps to establishing a successful social media presence for your business.
By Amy Hoppenrath
Participating in social media is much more than having a LinkedIn page or sending out a few Tweets now and then. Social media—when used strategically—can be an incredible tool for your business, providing customer insights, direct communication channels and the ability to closely monitor its impact on your business.
When looking ahead to 2010 and the role social media will play, it is imperative to have a cohesive, strategic plan for your business. By following the seven steps below, you’ll be well on your way to establishing a social media presence that will successfully impact your business in the New Year.
1. Define Your Goals
What are your goals and what do you want to accomplish by using social media? There are several benefits of incorporating social media into your business: It can build familiarity with your brand and services, give you the ability to generate leads, close business transactions, generate new partners and resources, increase search rankings and reduce your marketing budget. Taking this first crucial step will impact how your plan unfolds and help you stay on target.
2. Identify Your Audience
To reach your target audience, you first need to understand your target audience. Who are they? What makes them buy? And most importantly: where, when and how they are participating in social media. Then listen. What do they have to say? What are their concerns? What are they looking for? Once you get a grasp of who they are, it will help you to determine how you want to connect with them and the messages that you want to send.
3. Assess Your Organization
Is your organization ready to embrace social media? Do you understand the marketing value or are you fearful that it will provide a distraction to employees. Are you ready to “let loose” of the brand by engaging the public?
Do you have a social media policy or guideline? If so, how will this impact your efforts?
Finally, do you have the internal resources? Participating in social media requires time and commitment to continually post, comment and reply. Is someone available (and is there a budget) to keep up with your social media commitment?
4. Pick Your Media Tools
What kind of social media will best help you accomplish your business goals? Think about how social media will integrate with your traditional marketing program. With hundreds of different social media marketing strategies to use, it’s important to select the ones that are appropriate for your business. It’s also important that you select mediums that you enjoy. For example, if you like to write, you will probably want to consider a blog. If you are a “social butterfly,” social networking might be your ticket. And if you’re a great speaker, YouTube or podcasts might be the right vehicle for you. Social media requires a personal commitment to be successful, so you have to pick tools that are fun and engaging for you.
5. Engage Your Target
How do you plan to engage your target and move them along the trust cycle? Social media is not just an exchange between two, five or 10 individuals. To have a successful impact, it needs to be hundreds or thousands. How will you use social media to drive Web site visits? Once at your Web site, how will you get visitors to sign up for the RSS feed of your blog? Social media must fit into a larger marketing communications strategy. It’s imperative that you determine how social media will complement your current efforts, and how each type of media will drive and support the other.
6. Make an Action Plan
Build a monthly calendar and action plan to use as a guideline for your social media involvement. Then, get started. Leave comments on other posts and blogs, upload images, develop Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn identities, and anything else your strategy outlines. Also set aside a specific time to contribute to social media, so it doesn’t become a “distraction” from regular business. And, don’t forget to continually revise and update your plan to reflect the current marketplace.
7. Measure Your Success
To measure how successful your social media efforts are, assess the good and the bad along with the current marketplace.
Monitor your activities. In many cases, your social media campaign will be designed to drive traffic to your Web site. When using tools such as Google Analytics (free), you can measure: number of unique visitors, time spent on the site, page views per visitor, etc.
Additionally, you may wish to measure engagement and contribution to your posts, subscriptions to RSS feeds and look at the number of people who are bookmarking your content on sites such as Stumbleupon.com or del.icio.us
Ask yourself if your results helped you accomplish your goals. If not, revise and update your social media plan to support where you currently stand and where you ultimately want to be.
Amy Hoppenrath is a principal at AccelerAction, the only agency in Kansas City dedicated to fueling successful professional services firms by creating powerful branding messages, developing strategic lead-generation campaigns and driving business development programs. www.AccelerAction.com
